The pride that comes before a fall

 A bit of a mixed (putting it mildly) sailing experience yesterday. We took the boat out first thing when all looked well, and sailed into the bay for about half an hour, hurrah-ing the weather and having an all round lovely time. Then the wind changed and we started to tilt. I lost my nerve and said we should turn back, we tacked and headed back towards land, but the wind was even stronger behind us and then we were really tilting. I lost the last bit of my nerve and sat on the floor reciting the story of Jesus' disciples waking him in the storm while Will took down the sails and motored us back. The sea by then was really choppy and by the time we got back it was hard going. Our mooring got caught on our keel so we couldn't tie ourselves up, or release our dingy. Will managed to make a bit of slack in the chain with the boat hook, then a wave smashed us and broke the rope on our dinghy, which floated of. Then we floated off. Will tried to catch the mooring and dropped the boat hook while saying I should dive in after the dinghy (fat chance). I managed to get the spare boat hook and snag the dinghy and will motored us back to the mooring. After that whole hoohah the sea was much to rough for us to get off the boat. We waited and waited until finally, luckily, the yacht club brought out the sailing dinghies for racing, and the lifeboat that comes with them. We flagged them over and they taxied us back to land.

It was all in all a funny experience which at the time was definitely the most stressful and traumatic of my life so far - I include childbirth and being chased by large cows with horns in this - but on reflection was just a whole load of bad luck, lack of skill and experience, and failure, mostly on my part, to keep a cool head. Sailing, like life, is a mixed bag. The main thing I learn from this is that you mustn't be afraid to do things. Even if you have a bad experience, life is made of ups and downs, and there will always be good times and bad times. What you can't do is just constant damage control. We learned from experience that this does nothing but make life small and frightening.